Category: Culinary

Career Options in 2011

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Rising unemployment rates in the recent past have made hunting for a job a guerilla search. The good news is that while most sectors in our economy have suffered cutbacks in employment, many of them are now back in business and are ready to hire. Here’s what you should be doing.

Still in college or heading there? You have the opportunity to make the smart career choices now that can hone your skills for the job opportunities that are in greater demand today.

Already employed? Now is the time to consider upgrading your credentials with a course that could augment your skills and qualify you for promotions or a new career.

Careers that Show Excellent Growth Prospects

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, certain sectors of our economy are showing more optimistic signs of growth.* To enhance your job marketability, below are a few career options you should consider pursuing in 2011.

Healthcare. Its not for everyone, but if you’re looking for the likelihood of job security, this could be the place for your skills. During the recession, the healthcare industry was one of the few industries that actually hired more people. Plus, employment rates have been rising in almost every field of specialization. Career options are open in nursing, healthcare management, medical assisting, and accounting in hospitals and long-term facilities.

Energy Sector. As gas costs continue to rise, focus today has turned to saving energy and discovering alternative fuel sources. Opportunities lay ahead in marine, wind, and solar energies, carbon management, and more.

Business Administration. Business will always require administrators and managers, and opportunities are growing. Sales and customer service representatives are also in demand. Plus, with business gone global, more multinational companies are looking for people who are willing to travel or relocate to different parts of the world.

Information Technology (IT). According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, IT is one of the fastest-growing job markets.** There is a huge demand for a top-level, higher-end IT workforce, which includes talented systems designers and software developers. Internet publishers have good job prospects as well. The IT industry is dynamic, and a bright future could lie ahead for those who can keep up with the pace of information technology.

Good News for Fresh Grads
The job market for fresh grads is growing. Entry-level job postings for candidates with less than one year of experience have increased by 13 percent from the previous year at the end of 2010.***

Courses can prepare you both practically and academically to face real-life challenges in todays job market. There are a wide range of degree programs to consider in order to pursue a career in any of these growing fields, including health sciences degrees nursing administration degrees, information technology degrees and more.

*United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Statistics.” dol.gov/dol/topic/statistics/index.htm
**”Fourth Quarter 2010 Career Trend Analysis Report” Beyond.com, Inc. beyond.com/Media/BeyondcomCareerTrendAnalysisReport-4QT10.pdf
***Koc, Edwin and Mimi Collins. “Job Outlook 2011: College Hiring Outlook Positive in All Regions.” NACE. naceweb.org/Press/Releases/Job_Outlook_2011__College_Hiring_Outlook_Positive_in_All_Regions.aspx

Culinary Traditions Of France

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French cuisine is the amazingly high standard to which all other native cuisines must live up to. The country of France is home of some of the finest cuisine in the world, and it is created by some of the finest master chefs in the world. The French people take excessive pride in cooking and knowing how to prepare a good meal. Cooking is an essential part of their culture, and it adds to one’s usefulness if they are capable of preparing a good meal.

Each of the four regions of France has a characteristic of its food all its own. French food in general requires the use of lots of different types of sauces and gravies, but recipes for cuisine that originated in the northwestern region of France tend to require the use a lot of apple ingredients, milk and cream, and they tend to be heavily buttered making for an extremely rich (and sometimes rather heavy) meal. Southeastern French cuisine is reminiscent of German food, heavy in lard and meat products such as pork sausage and sauerkraut.

On the other hand, southern French cuisine tends to be a lot more widely accepted; this is generally the type of French food that is served in traditional French restaurants. In the southeastern area of France, the cooking is a lot lighter in fat and substance. Cooks from the southeast of France tend to lean more toward the side of a light olive oil more than any other type of oil, and they rely heavily on herbs and tomatoes, as well as tomato-based products, in their culinary creations.

Cuisine Nouvelle is a more contemporary form of French cuisine that developed in the late 1970s, the offspring of traditional French cuisine. This is the most common type of French food, served in French restaurants. Cuisine Nouvelle can generally be characterized by shorter cooking times, smaller food portions, and more festive, decorative plate presentations. Many French restaurant cuisines can be classified as Cuisine Nouvelle, but the more traditional French restaurant cuisine would be classified as Cuisine du Terroir, a more general form of French cooking than Cuisine Nouvelle. Cuisine du Terroir is an attempt to return to the more indigenous forms of French cooking, especially with reference to regional differences between the north and south, or different areas such as the Loire Valley, Catalonia, and Rousillon. These are all areas famous for their specific specialty of French cuisine. As time has progressed, the difference between a white wine from the Loire Valley and a wine from another area has slowly diminished, and the Cuisine du Terroir approach to French cooking focuses on establishing special characteristics between regions such as this.

Fajita Recipe – Healthy Eating

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Fajita recipe is healthy eating and the fact that you can experiment and improvise with this form of cooking makes the fajita even more popular today. Fajita is typically a Tex-Mex cuisine that owes its origin to the state of Texas Mexican workers. The first stall selling fajitas came about in 1969 and since then there has been no looking back for this popular recipe.

Fajita specialists hold that there happens to be only one original fajita recipe, although today you will come across fajita recipe in many variations and combinations. The original recipe comprises a beef slice called skirt steak which used to be cooked with vegetables and served with condiments. The word “fajita” literally means a girdle or belt, but today it stands for grilled meat that is served with corn or flour tortilla and an assortment of vegetables and condiments.

The choices with which you can prepare fajitas are the reason why the fajita recipe is so popular. You could make your fajita recipe light, nutritious, and healthy by using your creativity and culinary instincts. By introducing your own ingredients to it, you could even make the fajita recipe more palatable and mouthwatering. You could start by getting a good wrap bought from reputed supermarkets instead of buying those being sold on the street by vendors.

You could also start by using extra virgin oil which can make a world of difference to an ordinary recipe. Using sunflower oil is not recommended because it is fattening and does not help better the taste. Next, you should experiment with meat types. Instead of the traditional beef, choose chicken, pork, or shrimp for a difference in taste. Spice up this dish with tasty sauces and condiments to make it more appetizing.

Eating healthy typically means eating food that is low on fat content, salt, and simple carbohydrates. In a fajita recipe you can conveniently take care of all these factors by experimenting with the varieties of meat, vegetables, and flour. The vegetables that we normally tend to leave out of our everyday meals, and which are extremely important for ensuring a balance healthy diet, can be included in your fajita recipe. Most of us stay away from these nutritious vegetables simply because they are not prepared in a tasty manner. But with fajitas, you can dress your vegetables in a different costume and make them delightfully tasty for your family.

You can use your imagination to prepare the fajita mix by substituting beef with chicken, pork, or shrimp, preparing the tortilla with soy or wheat flour and not refined flour, and grilling the meat with a drop of olive oil. That way you get fajitas which are low in fat, more fibrous, and highly nutritious.

So eat healthy by experimenting intelligently with fajita recipe and enjoy this very popular dish in an unconventional way. You can consume healthy food without having to compromise on the taste. And above all, you can make this food with almost anything you can get your hands on, instead of having to prepare dishes with exotic items that are frightfully expensive. So think out of the box and use your creativity to make the fajita recipe healthier and tastier!

Foods You Can Eat To Boost Collagen And Reduce Wrinkles

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When you are a child, skin is soft and supple. There aren’t any wrinkles. Skin is perfect. In your late twenties, wrinkles start to form. Tiny lines, depressed into otherwise supple skin appear. As you get older, the lines deepen and more lines form. Collagen supports your skin. As collagen breaks down and diminishes with age, the supporting structure beneath the skin decreases and skin sags and wrinkles form.

What can you do about collagen? Some foods help boost your body’s collagen production, so include these in your diet.

1. Pigs trotters
Pigs feet sound gross. They are reputed to help you look younger because they contain collagen. At very least, your body, after breaking down the food would be able to reuse the nutrients in collagen production. Stewed pigs trotters in black sauce is a Chinese delicacy.

2. Soya Bean Milk, tofu and anything that is based on soy.
Soy contains genistein, an isoflavone. This isoflavone blocks enzymes that would otherwise destroy collagen.

3. Garlic.
Garlic contains sulfur which helps your body produce collagen. If you are concerned about garlic breath, chew some parsley to freshen your breath. Garlic contains taurine
and lipoid acid which support damaged collagen fibers.

4. Tomatos
These are very rich in the antioxidant lycopene which inhibits collagenases. Collagenases are enzymes that destroy collagen.
Antioxidants neutralize free radicals which would otherwise destroy the collagen and supporting structure of your skin, so taking foods with antioxidants

5. Fish
This is rich in omega fatty acids that keeps skin soft and supple.

6. Oranges and lemons
Citrus fruits are rich in vitamin C which will help your body produce collagen.

7. Dark green leafy vegetables
Dark green veggies like spinach contain vitamin C for collagen production. Spinach also contains iron and a whole host of vitamins to keep your body young and healthy.

8. Lean meat.
Food that has lysine and proline promote collagen and lean meat contain these, so the meat in pig’s feet should help. Maybe the collagen in pig’s feet would work too.

The Art Of Desert Safari Cuisine

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Finding yourself in the middle of the African Desert may present a few challenges to the skillful talents of a culinary artist. Ingredients are a lot harder to come by when you are stuck in the middle of the Desert. It’s just so much easier (and certainly more convenient) for a for a traditional restaurant chef who can very easily just pop out to nearest grocer to stock up on those must have necessities and luxury items.

However challenging, Culinary Artist Theresa Fehrsen has bravely stepped up to this challenge and is set to become the next Culinary Safari Chef Extraordinaire in her role as the new head chef at one of the most luxurious resorts in the Kalahari Desert.

Theresa Fehrsen has a lifelong fascination and passion for artistically tantalizing the palates by creatively presenting an array of culinary delights through inventive cooking. Being raised on a farm since she was a little girl, she always had access to an abundance of fresh produce and natural ingredients. Theresa’s fascination with natures own instilled in her from a very young age, a passion and skill in being able to effortlessly delivery incredible cuisine. The natural flair that she inherited from her mother for experimenting with food lead Theresa to Warwick’s Chef School in Hermanus in the Cape Province where she studied to become a master of the culinary arts.

When luxury ingredients are not always as easy to come by, it becomes essential to tap into the deepest level of intelligent creativity imaginable in order to plan well for the most extraordinary results. With the reserve being located more than 100 kilometers away from the next closest town; this Safari Chef Extraordinaire has to rely heavily on the locals in the surrounding areas. All the vegetables and herbs are organically grown in the safari camps and are protected with shade cloth to keep out the bugs, antelope and the warthog.

In keeping with an eco-friendly culture, the reserve’s waste disposal policy encourages sustainable travel to minimize the impact on the environment. Organic waste is therefore collected and used for the food gardens in a programme designed to maximize production of vegetables for households in remote areas. As further commitment to wildlife conservation, the reserve runs a programme to establish earth worm boxes which process organic waste into compost. The worms are able to process paper effectively as well as food waste. It is no wonder that with such dedication to eco-friendly tourism, that the reserve was honored as this year’s Wildlife Conservation Winner in Cond Nast Travelers thirteenth annual ecotourism World Saver’ Awards.

Even with so many challenges, the Kalahari Desert now has much to aspire to with chef and bartender safaris, a tandoori oven and a pizza oven shaped like a termites nest. This describes only a few of the astonishing plans of this creative genius as this Chef plans place Safari Cuisine at the very top of South Africa’s culinary arts map.

Not only has this culinary artist mastered the skill of inspired cooking, she also has a keen passion and interest in liquid refreshments. To further please and excite the tongue, she combines her cuisine with only the top selection of fine South African wines. The promise of a superb wine will compliment the delightful cuisine while enhancing the flavors and heightening the appreciation for both the wine and the cuisine.

To add an extra blend of class and sophistication to any safari cuisine, diners enjoy a selection of both alcoholic and non alcoholic cocktails. Even the children can select from a menu of fresh smoothies and non alcoholic beverages to accompany the healthier, but delicious alternatives to hamburgers.

Theresa is looking forward to completing advanced patisserie and nutrition courses, specializing in producing delicious menus for guests with food intolerances and allergies to ensure that her delightful cuisine is all encompassing and pleasing to all her diners.